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Pigs – Smarties with Dirty Faces

Pigs – Smarties with Dirty Faces

Pigs are among the smartest of all domestic animals. The world’s largest population of domestic pigs is in China. The second largest population of domestic pigs is in the United States, and the third largest is found in Brazil.
Wild pigs live in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The pygmy hog is the smallest of the wild pigs. The warty pig and the bearded pig live in parts of Southeast Asia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Both male and female wild pigs have tusks on their snouts.
A pig has a bulky body with short legs. They range in length from about 0.6 to 2.1 meters long. Domestic pigs can weigh as much as 320 kilograms. The skin of pigs is thick and tough, and it may be sparsely or thickly haired, depending on species.
Wild pigs eat a wide variety of foods, including leaves, roots, fruit, and reptiles. Domestic pigs eat corn and other grains, and some kinds of garbage.
A female can have as many as 20 piglets in a litter, but a litter of 10 or 11 is the average. In 1961 in Denmark, one pig gave birth to as many as 34 piglets at a time.
Farmers raise domestic pigs for their meat, which is called pork, and their fat, which is called lard. The skin of pigs is made into leather. Their stiff hair is used for brush bristles.
France to hunt for truffles, which are extremely flavorful and valuable mushrooms, use pigs because of their relatively high intelligence and extremely sensitive sense of smell.
Sometimes, pigs are kept as housepets.
Pigs do not sweat and have very few sweat glands.
Gastric juice of pigs is used in the manufacture of insulin.
The adult pig has 44 teeth, which grow constantly.
The Celts believed the boar was a symbol of spiritual power. The Druids honored this beast as the bearer of occult forest knowledge. The serve Scandinavians and proud Teutons associated the boar with the gods of power, battles and fertility. Hindus and nowadays pray to the goddess of blossoming and the queen of the heavens Vajravaraha, the personification of which is, surprisingly, not a sacred cow, but the same boar. The Japanese identify the wild boar with the god of war Hatiman – a model of courage and military victories. In Iran this beast is a symbol of the sun. In Siberia, the boar personifies courage, perseverance, conquest and all sorts of military prowess.
The Egyptian goddess of the sky Nut was sometimes depicted as a pig that feeds piglets (stars). The pig was also associated with the Egyptian goddess Isis and with the goddesses of motherhood in Mesopotamia and Scandinavia.
In some versions of the ancient Greek myth of the origin of the Olympic gods, the infant Zeus was raised by a pig. Indians believe that the Diamond Pig – the Great Mother and Queen of Heaven – is the source of life and fertility.